N00531:72
Cases of conscience concerning evil spirits personating men, witchcrafts, infallible proofs of guilt in…
Cases of conscience concerning evil spirits personating men, witchcrafts, infallible proofs of guilt in such as are accused with that crime. All considered according to the Scriptures, history, experience, and the judgment of many learned men. / By Increase Mather, president of Harvard College, at Cambridge, and teacher of a church at Boston in New-England. ; [Six lines of quotations]
Boston printed, : and sold by Benjamin Harris at the London Coffee-House., 1693
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
7. It has always been said, that it is a difficult thing to find out Witches. But if the Representation of such a person as afflicting, or the Look or Touch be an infallible proof of the guilt of Witchcraft in the persons complained of, 'tis the easiest thing in the world to discover them. For it is done to our hand, and there needs no enquiry into the matter.
8. Let them say this is an infallible Proof, produce any word out of the Law of God which does in the least countenance that Assertion. The Word of God instructs Jurors and Judges to proceed upon clear humane Testimony. Deut. 35. 30. But the word no where giveth us the least Intimation, that every one is a Witch, at whose Look the Bewitched person shall fall into Fits. Nor yet that any other means should be used for the discovery of Witches, then what may be used for the finding out of Murderers, Adulterers, and other Criminals.
9. Sometimes Antipathies in Nature have strange and unaccountable Effects. I have read of a man that at the sight of his own Son, who was no Wizard would fall into Fits. There ⟨p. 51⟩that find in their Natures an averseness to some persons whom they never saw before, of which they—give no better an account then he in Martial. Concerning Sabidius.
9. Sometimes Antipathies in Nature have strange and unaccountable Effects. I have read of a man that at the sight of his own Son, who was no Wizzard would fall into Fits. There ⟨p. 51⟩that find in their Natures an averseness to some persons whom they never saw before, of which they—give no better an account then he in Martial. Concerning Sabidius.